First We Take Manhattan
by OhGreat
Summary: Big cities and the loneliness that comes with them. Stevie and Alex talk things out, even if they don't want to. Stevie/Alex.


"First We Take Manhattan "

* * *

There came a day when money, laziness, and playtime didn't mix anymore, and Alex Russo had to get a job. After realizing _starving artist_ wasn't a joke, it was painfully literal, she chose a coffee shop with waist aprons and an early curfew. She learned to make coffee, she also learned to drink it, and somewhere along the way, she started to like it a little. It was boring, but it was retro sheik, something like a downtown paradise for a city girl like her.

The coffee shop was home to the standard demographic. There were pained artists, jazz lovers, college students, business men…and then there was a girl with short dark hair, who ordered straight black coffee.

She was skinny, punk, and very New York City, her bare arms hanging from a sleeveless ensemble of tank and vest, her legs a denim canvas of rips and tears. Alex recognized her even without the trademark bleached bangs, which had disappeared along with those long-forgotten high school years. When the girl strolled toward her with a smirk, Alex tried watching her back with the same amused, almost conceited expression, but she was no Leonardo DiVinci. She couldn't capture smiles well.

"Alex Russo," Stevie Nichols murmured, resting her forearms against the counter's cold, smooth surface. "It's been a while."

It had been two and a half years, but that could be wrong. Time seemed to transcend the café with an authenticity that made Alex feel like she was either twenty-one or a hundred years old. There was always a sense of waiting, never moving forward, just hovering.

"I miss the blonde," Alex replied, and the urge to reach out and skim Stevie's bangs seemed to overtake her fingers. She crossed her arms, and it was a century before she asked, "…How are you?"

She didn't really care how Stevie was. She only wanted to know what she was doing there, where she worked, and who she was dating, so, okay, maybe she did sort of care. But the distraction in her voice and the soft aversion of her gaze was enough to convince any on-looker that she didn't.

Stevie looked good. The blonde was gone but the brown dye remained the same, a mask against the black hair she had as a child. It was slightly longer, her hair, hanging lose until it touched her shoulders, her bangs clipped to the side like she'd just woken up. Which was probably true.

"I'm good. I'm subbing for a friend in a band; hurt his arm. I'm playing guitar." She lounged around the cashier's desk, smiling lopsidedly. "Aren't I cool?"

Alex wanted to say _you were always cool_, but yeah right, like that'd actually happen, so instead she leaned back and replied, "Not really. But I like getting hopes up. So, yes, you're so cool now." They smiled at each other just as the clock struck eight in the background noise. Alex glanced over. "Sorry, we're officially closed."

Stevie's smile fell into her trademark smirk. "Don't you want to know what the band is called?" When Alex looked back, Stevie finished with, "'Wars At Wonderland'. Not something I would've picked, but then again, I'm just a substitute."

Hearing Stevie talk felt good and bad all at once; her voice reminded Alex of a romance long buried, a relationship unfit for high school, an irregular tale of love, lust, and closet doors. They had left each other on supposedly mutual terms, but the pain that resurfaced every now and then was enough to say someone was a little wrong about that.

The manager of the coffee shop was starting to tell people to leave. Alex glanced at him, then back at Stevie.

They both started at the same time:

"What're you doing later—"

"Can I see you after you get off—"

They stopped, each looking awkward for the first time that night, the little high school girls buried deep inside suddenly resurfacing. Alex didn't look embarrassed and neither did Stevie; instead, they stared at each other with a longing that indicated the past was never forgotten, the present wasn't nearly as interesting, and the future was hoping for a resurrection. Then the glance died, and Alex started cleaning out a coffee machine.

"I have a concert tonight at a bar called '8 Paces Right' at ten," Stevie started in, her voice just a hair quicker than it was before.

The rag in Alex's hand moved methodically as she cleaned, never this thorough in her work but now lost in thought. "I'll try to make it," Alex said, turning back around and looking at Stevie. Her face, however, was less ambiguous and seemed to read _You know I'll be there._

They shared a stare for one more minute before Stevie, lost in thought herself, turned around and left, walking out the door with the same silence as her earlier entrance. Alex didn't watch her go. She stared back into the coffee pot and thought of the past.

* * *

Ten couldn't get there fast enough. By the time Alex made it out of the café, fixed her hair, and changed clothes, it was only nine. The bar was two blocks down, and like hell she'd show up on time, so she wandered around a bookstore waiting, until she realized her watch was wrong and that she was actually a half hour late.

Alex looked next at her cell phone in dismay, then collected herself and hauled ass down the second block, cutting through the throngs of Friday nighters with a rudeness that proved she lived in New York. As she neared the bar, she could hear the music echoing down the street, occasional cheers its backtrack.

She flashed her ID and tried to look less frazzled than she really was. But it didn't really matter, because the bar was packed so tightly she was nothing but another body to the crowd.

No use in ordering a drink, she headed toward the general direction of the stage. And then she saw her.

Even as a substitute, Stevie's calling was a rock band. Seamless and dynamic, she stood opposite the lead singer, shoulders hunched with an artistic flair as she strummed the guitar's strings, her fingers at its neck and body. She was casual yet hopelessly glamorous, embodying the royalty of a lead guitarist while bowing to the crowd's endless demands.

She wasn't the center of the stage, but she commanded it like she was, her riffs and solos taking direction and leading the show. The crowd ate it up, their cheers ascending the performance until the very end, on their feet and hands applauding.

Alex watched. And then Stevie noticed.

Near the end, Stevie looked through the crowd and seemed to pause her playing for a fraction of a second, catching glimpse of Alex and then smiling. She never lost energy, but Alex's presence was like a bonus round, and the last of their songs turned out to be the very best.

There were bows and a _good night, Manhattan!_ and a dwindling crowd and dying noise, and then there was Stevie. Alex watched her place her guitar off to the side and then move over to her, hands in her pockets. They smirked together.

"So, what did you think of the band?" Stevie asked, almost sheepishly.

Alex shrugged. "I was too busy staring at you the whole time. You guys might actually suck and I'd never know." She paused and then sobered, eyes locked with Stevie's. "I'm glad I could make it."

"I didn't think you were going to show for a while there."

And then, without really thinking about it, they hugged. It was unexpected. Alex's hands went to Stevie's back and Stevie's arms wound around her shoulders, snug and fit and warm. The hug was the most comforting thing Alex had felt since she started living on her own; it felt right and familiar.

"I've missed you," Stevie murmured into her shoulder.

Alex felt like she was fading into black. She breathed in Stevie's scent. "I've missed you," she echoed, but it was reversed, and she wondered who meant it more.

They ordered drinks together for the first time, and whether or not they meant it, they both got strong ones. Maybe it was to knock the senses for a loop, but really, that had already been done, and so maybe they just wanted to get drunk. But halfway through her drink Alex decided that night's memory was worth more than a long island ice tea was, and she asked for a glass of water like a total cop out.

"What've you been up to for these last few years?" Stevie asked, her fingers entwining the straw of the drink she wasn't really drinking.

Alex stared into her glass. She hated this question, mostly because her productivity level hadn't changed much since high school, only now she was a legit artist with a sort-of-degree instead of an armature one drawing in diaries. "I studied graphic design for a while. Now I'm trying to figure out how to make money from it." She sighed and sat back. "Maybe my real calling is bourgeois cafes and crappy customers." Yeah, seriously.

"Art's your calling. Coffee's just a road you're taking," Stevie said, trying to cheer Alex up, but neither of them had ever been insanely optimistic. They ended up laughing together anyway.

"How about you?"

Stevie shrugged. "Wandering. This band is just a for-now thing. Our last show's next week, then the original guitarist takes back over. But you know me, I like spontaneity." Alex did know this, because she also liked spontaneity. In a way it was sort of their thing, only it was a lot more mapped out than either of them ever realized.

"Where're you going to go?"

Stevie looked pensive, then sipped her drink. "LA. Maybe for a little while."

Alex didn't seem disappointed. To Stevie, all big cities were the same, connected by some invisible string of things in common. But in a weird paradox, Stevie liked to stand still. It was just where to stand that was the problem.

The bar was quiet, like it knew they didn't want interruptions, and so Stevie asked, "How's Justin and Max?"

It had been a while since she'd talked to her brothers. She saw Max more and Justin less, but it wasn't so much sibling favoritism as it was that Max still lived at home. Justin was doing the college thing, in his last year, and he was in the process of applying to medical school. She forgot what state he was in. Massachusetts? Connecticut? Either way, he had made the family very, very proud, which only meant Alex cared so very, very little.

Max was in his senior year of high school, taking an interest in forensic entomology because it was absolutely disgusting and they totally paid you for it. Things were changing a little with the boy; he seemed to be swinging away from girls a lot more than not, something the Russos had yet to notice but Alex saw a mile away. She already had a space for him in her apartment when all hell would break lose. He'd need somewhere to go. He was doing alright, though. Good grades, lots of friends. Finally getting the attention he deserved from his parents.

"They're both okay. All Justin does is study, and Max is looking at schools he wants to apply to. I don't really see them anymore." It felt weird. She suddenly sort of missed them.

"Must be nice not being one in three," Stevie echoed, which Alex appreciated because Stevie got her completely.

And then, of course, it had to be asked. Tact was neither of their strong points.

"So…are you seeing anyone?" Stevie asked, the topic of wandering leading to the topic of wandering with people.

Alex looked up from her drink. 'Anyone' was less interesting than she wanted to admit; essentially she went out to dinner a lot, but since leaving home there were few guys she wanted to really introduce her parents to. She was never in love, never flirted with dark attractions; maybe she didn't want to anymore. She sighed. "Oh, you know, a few different guys. I'm just going to say I'm not really looking." Insert pathetic pause there. "What about you?"

Stevie seemed distracted by Alex's answer, and when she replied back, her voice sounded far away. "Just flings." She took a deep breath. "You're hard to beat, Alex."

Hearing the words fall from Stevie's mouth was a lot harder than Alex wanted to admit. They seemed to hit her in the chest with a heaviness she wasn't expecting, weighing down on her lungs like the past was still as alive as the present was. Maybe she had changed since high school; things bothered her in a way they wouldn't have four years ago, the signs of a real adult, and reliving the past was just a sign of growing up. Or maybe she had never really gotten over Stevie Nichols after all.

Alex finished off her drink. "You are too, Stevie."

There was a long silence after that, and when they finished their drinks, they walked along the sidewalk, letting their shoulders brush together as the _what ifs_ and _could've beens_ seemed to overtake their lives again.

Alex lived a few blocks down in a crappy apartment perfect for a crappy paycheck. They walked up the staircase slowly, and when they reached Alex's door, time felt as if it had stopped.

"What happened to us?" Alex asked softly, leaning against the balcony's railing.

They had dated for nearly two years, finishing high school together without really knowing what the future was supposed to hold. College was never a goal for either of them, and individually they weren't sure what direction to take. Maybe it was their uncertainties that drove them apart, their insecurities dissecting the path they thought they would take together.

Now, nearly three year later, they happened to be walking on the same path again.

"Alex," Stevie murmured, her hands in her pockets as she looked up from the ground. "I don't want to go to LA." She pushed from the wall like she couldn't stand it any longer.

"Then don't go," Alex replied like it was obvious, but the sadness in her voice diluted her comment, and she met Stevie in the center of the walkway, her hands reaching for Stevie's face.

Their kiss happened at once, so familiar with the other, like the three years had really only been three days, the same attraction and force resurfacing with an energy they only had together. But there was a difference, a yearning that was storybook sad, like the heartbreak and the tears were something that could've been sidestepped, if only they'd looked both ways before crossing the street.

Stevie's hands pooled at the small of Alex's back, ringing her in like they weren't close enough, burning their bodies together with a fiery tension that was all emotion, misunderstanding, and apologies. Alex could feel Stevie's heartbeat, feel her quick breath, and for a long time she followed Stevie's lead, opening her mouth and kissing her back. She gripped at her shoulders, held her quick, kissed her again and again.

She drank in her kiss, hardly dizzy yet having trouble distinguishing her surroundings from the blur they had become. They parted if only to catch their breaths, but somewhere along the way they caught the other's stare, a silent contract of understanding passing through their locked gaze.

When Alex leaned back, she knew this was right.

She listened to the hymn of the city. She listened to rhythm of Stevie's breath, and for the first time in years, she felt whole.

They smiled at each other, and Stevie laced her hand with Alex's, kissing the back of it, knowing whatever direction they took, it was a journey they would share. Together.

* * *

**A/N: **Dedicated to **Princess Russo, **my Stevex partner in crime and also the first one who pondered Max's sexuality.

Okay, so AU as hell, and uh, the lack of magic was more for realism purposes, but if you feel canon-anal, then let's just say they both lost their powers sometime ago. Anyway, I don't know if this made sense. But I wanted to write something that was not-not angsty, like pretend angst, because Stevie and Alex aren't angsty characters. Like, at all.

Title is based off the song of the same name.

**Disclaimer: I do not own WOWP. **


End file.
